The Hand Above the Storm

This psalm appears a second time, with small differences, as 2 Samuel 22. The heading calls David “the servant of the LORD”, a title shared with Moses and Joshua. “I will love thee” uses a tender verb from the root for womb, found only here of a person’s love for God, and missing in 2 Samuel.

Two different words for rock: sela, a crag or cliff, and tsur, a massive rock. “Fortress” is metsudah, the word behind Masada, and David hid in such strongholds in the wilderness of Judah (1 Samuel 23:14). The horn was the bull’s weapon, a picture of power.

The verse is the whole song in miniature before it is told: call, praise, rescue. “Worthy to be praised” is one word, the praised one. What follows spells out, at length, how the “so shall I be saved” came about.

The word for “sorrows” means both ropes and birth pangs, and ropes is the likelier sense beside snares. 2 Samuel 22:5 has “waves of death”. “Ungodly men” is Belial, worthlessness, a word that later becomes a name for Satan (2 Corinthians 6:15).

Death and Sheol are pictured as a fowler with cords and trap. “Snares” is the word for the trigger stick of a trap, the part that springs shut. The speaker is already caught, the lines drawn tight.

“His temple” here is the heavenly palace, since in verse 9 he has to come down from it. The cry travels up “even into his ears”, and what comes down in answer fills the next nine verses.

The earthquake recalls Sinai, where “the whole mount quaked greatly” (Exodus 19:18). 2 Samuel 22:8 has “the foundations of heaven” where this verse has “the foundations also of the hills”: heaven or mountains, the whole frame shakes.

Anger in Hebrew is the nose, and burning anger is a hot nose. The verse takes the idiom literally: smoke rises from his nostrils. What was a figure of speech becomes a picture of God as a furnace.

“Bowed” is stretched down, bent, as one bends a tent. “Darkness” is the thick darkness of Sinai, where “Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 20:21). The same cloud is now under his feet.

The cherubim above the ark were called “the chariot of the cherubims” (1 Chronicles 28:18), God’s throne carriage. Where this verse has “did fly” upon the wings of the wind, 2 Samuel 22:11 has “was seen”; the two Hebrew verbs differ by one easily confused letter.

“Pavilion” is sukkah, a booth of branches, the shelter of the feast of Tabernacles. God’s shelter is made of storm cloud and dark water. The “secret place” is a hiding place, the same darkness that covered Sinai.

Hail and fire together is the seventh plague of Egypt: “hail, and fire mingled with the hail” (Exodus 9:24). The brightness before him breaks through the cloud, and what falls out is hail and lightning.

“The Highest” is Elyon. Thunder as God’s voice is the theme of Psalm 29. The closing phrase “hail stones and coals of fire” repeats verse 12 and is missing here in 2 Samuel 22:14 and the ancient Greek, perhaps a copyist’s echo.

“Discomfited” is the verb for throwing an army into panic, used when the LORD “troubled the host of the Egyptians” at the sea (Exodus 14:24) and “discomfited Sisera” (Judges 4:15). Lightning is the arrows; the panic is the rout.

The sea is blown back to its bed, as at the Red Sea: “with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together” (Exodus 15:8). “Discovered” in 1611 meant uncovered, laid bare. Even the floor of the world is exposed.

“Drew me out” is mashah, found elsewhere only in Exodus 2:10, where Pharaoh’s daughter names Moses “because I drew him out of the water”. The king is pulled out of the flood as the baby was.

“My strong enemy” is singular, and the heading has already named Saul. The admission is plain: “too strong for me”. David was an outlaw with a few hundred men against the army of a king.

“Calamity” is ’eid, disaster, a word Obadiah hammers three times over Edom’s gloating (Obadiah 13). “Stay” is a staff to lean on, from the same root as the “staff” of Psalm 23:4.

When David fled from Absalom he said, “if he thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here am I” (2 Samuel 15:26). Here the answer is given: “because he delighted in me”, the same verb.

“Cleanness of my hands” is concrete: hands without blood on them. Twice David had Saul at his mercy and refused, saying, “who can stretch forth his hand against the LORD’s anointed, and be guiltless?” (1 Samuel 26:9).

“Wickedly departed” is one verb and a preposition in Hebrew: I have not done wickedly away from my God. Sin is pictured as leaving, walking off from God, rather than as breaking a rule.

“Judgments” and “statutes” are the paired terms of Deuteronomy, “hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments” (Deuteronomy 4:1). To keep them “before me” is to keep them in view, in front of the eyes.

“Upright” is tamim, whole, the word God used to Abraham, “walk before me, and be thou perfect” (Genesis 17:1). “Mine iniquity” is the sin that would be his own, the particular weakness he kept away from.

The verse repeats verse 20 almost word for word, so that the three verses between are bracketed as the reason. The one addition, “in his eyesight”, moves the measure of cleanness from David’s view to God’s.

The verbs of this verse and the next are coined from adjectives: with the loyal you show yourself loyal, with the whole man you show yourself whole. God is pictured as a mirror to each person’s way of dealing.

“Froward” is twisted. The verb for God’s response is from a different root, patal, to wrestle or twist, the word in Naphtali’s name: “With great wrestlings have I wrestled” (Genesis 30:8). With the crooked, God is a wrestler.

“High looks” are raised eyes, the haughty stare; “a proud look” heads the list of seven things the LORD hates in Proverbs 6:17. “Afflicted people” are the humble, the ones whose eyes are down.

The lamp of David stands for his line: “that David my servant may have a light alway before me” (1 Kings 11:36), and his men begged him not to go into battle again, “that thou quench not the light of Israel” (2 Samuel 21:17).

“Troop” is gedud, a raiding band. David asked the LORD at Ziklag, “Shall I pursue after this troop?” (1 Samuel 30:8). Some read “run through a troop” as “run against a rampart”, which would pair it with the wall.

“His way is perfect” echoes the Song of Moses: “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment” (Deuteronomy 32:4). “Tried” is refined, as silver was in 12:6.

Hannah’s song asks the same question: “neither is there any rock like our God” (1 Samuel 2:2). Moses sang, “their rock is not as our Rock” (Deuteronomy 32:31). The question expects no answer.

The warrior’s girdle held up the long tunic for action and carried the sword, so to gird someone is to equip them. 2 Samuel 22:33 reads differently, “God is my strength and power”.

Hinds are female deer or ibex, sure-footed on the cliffs above En-gedi, where David hid. “High places” are the commanding heights of a battlefield, as in Deuteronomy 32:13, “He made him ride on the high places of the earth.” Habakkuk 3:19 borrows this line.

“Steel” is really bronze; the word means copper or bronze, and bronze-backed bows were stiff enough that bending one proved great strength. Psalm 144:1 opens with the same thought, “which teacheth my hands to war”.

The clause “thy right hand hath holden me up” is not in the version of 2 Samuel 22:36. “Gentleness” is a word elsewhere used of human humility, here applied to God: greatness given by one who stoops.

“Feet” is a rare word found only here and in 2 Samuel 22:37, usually taken as ankles. “My ankles did not give way” is the runner’s fear on rough ground, and the enlarged path answers it.

“Pursued … overtaken” are the verbs of Pharaoh’s boast at the sea, “I will pursue, I will overtake” (Exodus 15:9). What the enemy of Israel said, the king now says, and this time it happens.

“Wounded” is to smash or shatter, the verb used of Jael, who “smote through his head” when she killed Sisera (Judges 5:26). The fallen enemy lies under the victor’s feet, the conqueror’s posture of 8:6.

The belt of verse 32 returns. “Subdued” is literally made to kneel, to bow down; those who rose up against him are brought to their knees under him.

“Given me the necks” means made them turn their backs, the neck being what a fleeing man shows. God promised this in Exodus 23:27, “I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee”, where the Hebrew is the same word.

Even his enemies cried to the LORD, and were not answered. Of Saul it is said that “when Saul enquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not” (1 Samuel 28:6). Prayer is heard in verse 6 and refused here.

Chaff before the wind is the fate of the ungodly in 1:4. “Dirt in the streets” is the mud of the lanes; 2 Samuel 22:43 has “I did stamp them as the mire of the street”, trodden underfoot.

The “heathen” David came to rule included Moab, Edom, Ammon and the Aramaeans (2 Samuel 8). “A people whom I have not known” fits kings like Toi of Hamath, who sent gifts unasked (2 Samuel 8:9–10).

“As soon as they hear of me” is literally “at the hearing of the ear”, the phrase Job uses in 42:5. “Submit themselves” is a verb that means to lie, to feign: foreigners cringe and fawn, a submission made for show.

“Fade away” is to wither like leaves. “Close places” are strongholds; the picture is of creatures coming out of their holes trembling, as Micah says the nations “shall move out of their holes like worms” (7:17).

“As the LORD liveth” was the everyday oath (1 Samuel 14:39). Here it stands alone as a declaration, the living God set against the lifeless defences the enemies came trembling out of in verse 45.

“Avengeth me” is literally gives vengeances to me. David repeatedly left vengeance to God, telling Saul in the cave, “The LORD judge between me and thee, and the LORD avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee” (1 Samuel 24:12).

“The violent man” is singular, a man of violences, and after the heading the reader thinks of Saul, who twice threw a javelin at David as he played (1 Samuel 18:11).

The “heathen” who raged against the anointed in 2:1 are now the audience for his thanks. Paul quotes the line in Romans 15:9 as proof that the Gentiles would glorify God.

“Great deliverance giveth he” reads in 2 Samuel 22:51 “He is the tower of salvation”; the Hebrew words differ by one vowel letter. The last clause picks up the promise of 2 Samuel 7:16, “thy throne shall be established for ever.”